Thank You, My Son
by Claire D'Aubigne
Summary: Yes, the title sucks. This is my version of what AnakinVader would have been thinking as he died. AUish. Goes at the end of RotJ. Be gentle in your criticism, please. :)


_I could have killed you so many times._  
  
The thought came, unbidden, into Anakin Skywalker's mind as he looked at his son – with his own eyes – for the last time. Darth Vader was dying. He was dying. To save the life of a boy he had fathered, but never known.  
  
_Not a boy. A man._ The boy that was once his son was gone; the naïveté that he once possessed had been replaced by very adult problems. The first time he'd faced in his son, a boy stared back at him. A bright-eyed, innocent child. The son that stood before him now, the one he saw through his own eyes, had a man's tired and worried gaze. There was no aura of innocence now. That was gone, thanks to Palpatine.  
  
He'd only seen Luke like this once before. A stolen glance of a tiny, screaming infant boy, being carried away by Obi-Wan in the night. Only a ripple in the Force, then he was gone. Vader could have killed him then. It would have been so easy. Obi-Wan's attention was elsewhere; the boy was virtually unguarded.  
  
Shortly after, he'd dueled with his former master, and lost. Anakin had truly ceased to exist and Darth Vader, in all his black-armored glory, had taken his place. He'd thought the boy was dead.  
  
Until Yavin. Vader knew that the Death Star was in danger. He felt the Force flowing through the pilot of the X-Wing, but had given it little thought. Yet, when the time came to kill the pilot or lose the Death Star, he hadn't been able to blast the boy. Mercy is not the way of the Dark Side, he remembered thinking. But he couldn't find it within himself to do it. Seconds later, fire from the _Millennium Falcon_ grazed his TIE fighter, sending him through space in a mindless spiral.  
  
He remembered his surprise at learning the young pilot's name. _Luke Skywalker_. Remembered his hesitation when the Emperor – Darth Vader's master – had said that under no circumstances should the boy become a Jedi.  
  
Something unfamiliar to him stirred at that point. Something he hadn't felt in forever. He wouldn't call it love, exactly... that was completely unknown to Darth Vader. Anakin had loved, and it had led to his extermination. Vader would not make the same mistake. Yet he felt it, and then a twinge of something else – the mercy he'd felt at Yavin.  
  
So he'd bargained, in essence, for his son's life. He didn't want to kill him, so he would turn him instead.  
  
Almost before he knew it, his son stood before him. He was no longer a screaming baby, but an intense young man. He fought so bravely, and Vader had felt true anger... although it was not directed at Luke. His anger was focused on Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, who in some sense allowed the boy to come – Vader was sure Kenobi could have stopped him if he'd truly wanted to.  
  
Vader didn't exactly like cutting off Luke's hand, either, but it was the lesser of two evils. His hand could be replaced. If Vader had chosen to run the lightsaber through his son's heart, there would be no hope.  
  
He might have even felt something akin to sadness when Luke so vehemently denied his paternity. If Sith lords could feel sadness.  
  
_It wasn't like I was the model father, anyway.  
_  
Then he'd fallen down that shaft, out into the clouds, and Vader had reached out, ready to catch him if he needed to, but Luke had managed to break his own fall. He realized that if it had been possible, he would have been holding his breath at that moment. Vader had heard when Luke, cuddling his maimed arm to his chest, had called out to Leia. He'd felt when they'd finally gotten Luke into the safety of the _Falcon_. He now only had to worry about when the Emperor finally caught up with his son.  
  
As it turned out, Luke had sought him out. Surrendered, in an uncharacteristic gesture. He was so trusting, when Vader held his son's lightsaber in his hands and Luke had carelessly turned his back. That simple display of trust was foremost in Vader's mind as he dueled yet again with his son, as he felt the Emperor's anger with Luke growing.  
  
He was shocked when he'd learned of Leia. Luke's thoughts turned to her, and Vader knew. He'd used the girl – his daughter – to taunt Luke into fighting again. Not to turn him to the Dark Side, this time. He wanted Luke to kill him, to end his misery, and live. Darth Vader knew that his master would kill the boy if he failed to fight.  
  
It was inevitable anyway. Luke's compassion and nobility won out, and he bravely faced the Emperor, the very image of Death. _I am a Jedi, like my father before me.  
_  
That, coupled with the memory of his son's earlier trust and the screams of pain that came from him as Palpatine slowly killed him, brought Anakin Skywalker back to life. He'd murdered his master – and fatally injured himself in the process – but he'd saved his son's life.  
  
Anakin Skywalker smiled. "Now... go, my son. Leave me."  
  
It had been the boy, the innocent naïve Luke that replied. "No. You're coming with me. I can't leave you here... I've got to save you."  
  
Anakin felt an overwhelming sense of regret for what he'd done to his own child – _children._ Pride for what they had both become, his son and his daughter. Heroes, so much better than what he had become. So like their mother, both of them. Love for the boy... _man_... that hovered over him now. And a realization that Anakin had never truly died when Darth Vader came into existance, just sank below the surface, waiting to be discovered and brought out again by the right person, at the right time. _Thank you for that, Luke... my son_. The screaming baby he'd once seen flashed again before his eyes. "You already have, Luke. You were right about me... tell your sister. You were right."  
  
"Father... I won't leave you." The crying baby boy, now a war-weary man, replied.  
  
Anakin closed his eyes for the last time. 


End file.
